John Linton We left home at 2.00pm yesterday and have just checked in to our hotel room in Colombo fifteen and a half hours later. It is an uneventful trip with a 'quick aircraft change' in Singapore (including a terminal change) and the final hair raising trip from the airport to the hotel. Uneventful - but punishing in its own ways.
I listened to the Bob Thodey interview on Business Today before I left Sydney. Pretty tame stuff with a very deferential interviewer and a set of pretty anodyne questions which by the time I reeached Singapore had been reported here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/thodey-close-to-coming-up-trumps-from-what-looked-like-a-losing-hand/story-fn91v9q3-1226167125197
It is interesting to see both the interview questions and this piece of reporting subtly switching tack in terms of how Telstra is now choosing to explain the scenario that has been created. It is, at least sort of, true that "Telstra had no choice" but only in as much as any business "has no choice" in any aspect of its existence. It's also true as the reporter has spun the interview, heavily guided by Mr Thodey, that at this juncture, Telstra has done as well as it possibly could out of this 'lack of choice'....and its shareholders should be grateful for those negotiating skills - in the event that negotiating is the correct word to use in th is context.
If in fact Telstra has now, truly, been confined (at least at some pretty long distant future time) to simply the largest among a group of wholesale customers of the new Federal communications monopoly then Mr Thodey's interview was an interesting insight in to how such a new scenario might work - but if anyone actually believes that it's possible for a sluggish monopoly with monopoly attitudes ingrained in to every aspect of its being to change to a 'light on its feet' and customer service oriented willing market place competitor, in any time frame, then they are truly naive. It was a skillful and well 'measured' interview performance and appeared to fool the Australian's reporter but it was the sheerest nonsense.
The true reality is that Telstra cannot compete, even as a first among 'equals'. It has no capability to do that because EVERY person within that organisation was hired and then indoctrinated to behave as a monopolist employee together with being indoctrinated in to acting within a giant/sluggish corporation within which time frames for even the most modest decision are light years longer than those required in non monopoly commercial life - they simply cannot survive in the world of true, or even partially true, competition. I am obviously travel weary and quite possibly a little jet lagged so I will go to bed now but I just had to make the point that, in the history of commerce, there is no example of a government monopoly ever making even a partial transition to becoming a successful commercial competitor.
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